Bed full of tomatoes?

lisaphoto Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:16 am

This year I am wanting to expand my number of boxes. I am planning on growing lots of different types of heirloom tomatoes if I can get the seedlings to grow well enough. Should I do all the tomatoes in one box towards the north side and put my shorter crops in the south side boxes. Or should I separate the tomatoes and have some in every box? I know tomatoes are 1 per square, but is putting tomato squares next to each other too crowded if they are indeterminate?

Ha-v-v Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:23 am

I had a bed full of tomatoes for two years in a row.. I have some really crazy pics of the indeterminates over growing the bed. I found it was too much work and kept them susceptible to disease and hard to get at to prune and or harvest. I am going to put 8 tomato plants per bed this time Smile

these are 4x8 beds and the north side is the 8ft side Smile

I am so looking forward to less work and I hope healthier tomatoes Smile

I did get a lot of tomatoes, but not as many as I think I could have if I was able to tend them better.

Plus I watched a video of a guys place and his tomatoes were all at the end of the bed, just had lots of beds to have more tomatoes. That is why Im glad my boxes are so the 8 square side is north.

lisaphoto Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:28 am

That's what I was afraid of, the disease and being able to get to them I have to wait and see what beds I build. But maybe I'll keep them on the longer side so I can have a bunch toward the north.

deriter Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:59 am

I was thinking of planting 8 plants on the north end of one of my 4x4 boxes being 2 rows of 4. Maybe I need to rethink this and only plant 1 row of 4 and put the other 4 in another box. I had not considered the disease part, but if that were a problem then how do you rotate with sfg? I used to plant like 16 plants and just hope for the best. Hoping this sfg will yield as much or at least enough for us and friends.

**camprn** Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:49 am

If you are planning to save any of the seed from different varieties, there are some important things to consider in regards to placement of different plants in the garden and protecting strain purity. Quiltbea has written some good threads about pollinating and saving tomato seeds.

Regarding one per square... last year they were placed every other square, but then were heavily pruned. This year I think I am going to try indeterminate paste tomatoes 1 per square and keep with the heavy pruning.

For the cherry style tomatoes I will again do one per square and go with the Florida weave trellis to contain it all. Very Happy

quiltbea Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:10 pm

If space is an issue, you can always plant on the west side of the box as well. I did that last year and it worked out well for me. I just had too many varieites I wanted to try and no more room on the north sides, so I put 3 in the west side of a box with sugar snap peas trellised on the north. I didn't have stringing there so I just staked them. Worked out fine in a pinch.

Bed full of tomatoes? 05-26-13

above: my raised bed with tomato transplants on the west side, peas on the north and my upturned litter buckets that I use for seating when I'm working in the garden. It works great with me straddling the bucket and I can put 2 or 3 inside one another to make them higher if I like. Some buckets I use for seating, others for storing sun-warmed water for the plants and others for storing worm castings.

AranMC Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:22 pm

I have 11 55gallon plastic food grade barrels that I'm going to cut in half and grow tomatoes in, the diameter of the barrel means I can get a couple of plants in each with maybe a few basil around the edge. Plus I'll be growing the indeterminate types in a row on the North side of each my SFG beds and grow them up a trellis..

I'm growing lots of tomatoes cos I want to can and freeze them and make sauces and salsa's with them too...
I'm also going to be trying quite a few of the heirlooms cos I want to taste them...lol

Aran

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